“It’s complicated.”
“It’s really not.”
He groaned. “Mae. I can’t…” His sweatpants came up to rest low across his hips and Mae licked her lips, suddenly feeling parched. It was cliche as all sin, but damn, he looked incredible in them. She almost burst into flames when he pulled on his black Henley, the memories of her fingers pulling it over his head after they’d edged each other in the living room setting her skin on fire.
She watched as he looked at his phone. His eyes drifted closed for a second before slipping the device into his pocket.
“What was that about? Where are you going?” She sat up, the comforter falling to her waist as she watched him walk towards the door.
“I just need to clear my head. I’m going to go for a run.”
“It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”
“Only by an hour or so. We stayed up nearly all night.”
“And what are you going to think about while you’re out running?” Mae slipped out of bed, making her way to her own pile of discarded clothing. It felt wrong to be pulling it back on at that late… or actually, early… hour. She wanted to be back in bed. Back in Stone’s arms. Safe, and warm, and with the hope still alive in her heart that they weren’t about to have the same fight again.
“How we got here again. How we finally find a way to walk away from each other. Because this can’t keep happening.”
Mae froze with her pants halfway up to her hips. Her stomach tightened painfully.
“I don’t know how we can be over. How you can fuck me like that, knowing you’re going to kick me out of your bed. How you can tell me you love me, call me yours. And then just say we can never have what all the rest of our friends do!”
There had always been moments in her life that she could look back on after the fact, and see how easily she missed it. The signs from the universe that everything was going to change.
Mae was staring down one of those moments.
It was playing out right in front of her, the dread and fear filling her body with each passing second. Even as she blinked, walking numbly down the hall after Stone, trying to shake the feeling from her mind as she was still surrounded by the soft fabric of his shirt, she knew the outcome was always going to be the same. Her heart would shatter, and nothing would ever put it back together again.
There in the darkest hours of the middle of the night, when the rest of the world was fast asleep, tears threatened to spill over her lashes over someone who was about to break her heart. Someone who she was just scratching an itch witheighteen months ago had somehow become the most important person in her life. She’d let him in. Let him wrap his arms right around her heart, like some lovesick schoolgirl. But that wasn’t Mae at all. To know she let Stone in and it was all about to go up in flames made her want to crawl out of her own skin.
Mae’s eyes scanned across the kitchen, watching as Stone pressed a million buttons on his fancy ass coffee machine. Screeching, alarming sounds she’d become used to cracking through the silence between them. And still, she just stared at him. Waiting. Willing the words to come out of his mouth. For him to just put her out of her misery.
Stone finally grabbed the two full cups from under the machine, holding one out to her. And she took it, but the warmth didn’t move beyond her hands. Instead, the chilled air of his apartment wrapped around her, pouring ice into the wound that night had cut open inside her soul.
Because she’d gone over there thinking that everything would be alright between them. That he regretted the things that were said. The way he’d already broken her heart. He’d made love to her like he was planning on saying those exact things, but instead, Mae realized, he was saying goodbye.
“I can’t have this fight with you again, Stone. Why can’t you see? Why can’t you see that we can have it all?”
“It doesn’t always have to be a fight, does it?” Stone threw his hands up in the air. She knew every word he was going to say. She knew every fact he was going to throw in her face. But she didn’t care. Stone was her person. Her heart knew that. And she was just stubborn enough to fight for the two of them, even when he couldn’t.
“We can’t. I can’t juggle it, Mae. I can’t balance school, work, and be a good boyfriend to you. A husband. A good father one day.”
She pushed the air from her lungs in a heavy sigh. “Thenleave your job. The guys understand that you want to chase your passion. They will support you.”
“And live off of what?”
“Are you forgetting that we work at the same place? I can support us until you get through med school.” Mae protested.
“I won’t do that to you. That’s your money.” Stone shook his head.
She scoffed. “Oh, right. The money I make is my money, but the money you’ve made was… what? Our money?”
“Yes. I’m not taking your money. I’m not pressuring you to work more so I can go after what I think will fix this never ending ache in my stomach.”
He needed help. All those nights he jumped up in his sleep, trapped somewhere he never wanted to talk about with her. She knew he was struggling, and she should have called him on it earlier. She should have talked to the guys at work, maybe asked her close friend Sloane Dononvan for a recommendation to one of her therapist colleagues, or had him talk to Dr. Jake Rahni, someone their boss Sebastian trusted implicitly, about medical intervention. Something. Anything. Because now, he was pushing her away for good. And once he did that, he’d be completely isolated from anyone who knew what was happening.
“The other night—” The ghost of his touch, his fingers wrapped around her arm so tight she’d yelped in pain, tore across her skin. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. She knew that. She knew the Stone standing in front of her would never, ever hurt her while he was awake. But lost to those dreams, lost to the memories, he was a different person.
